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Luke McGregor heads up an Australian influx at Soho Theatre (Picture: Supplied)

Comedy review: Luke McGregor: My Soulmate Is Out Of My League

Thanks to the magnetic pull of the Edinburgh Festival, London has a comedy hole to fill in August . Soho Theatre is once again making up its schedule with rising stars from Australia. Sam Simmons, Ronnie Chieng and Matt Okine all return this month, while Luke McGregor makes his London debut – and what a wonderful discovery this Tasmanian is.

McGregor ticks a lot of familiar boxes: he’s hugely self-deprecating, twitchy and awkward – so awkward that he trips and stumbles through his delivery – but he makes that work to his advantage; his offbeat rhythm has a magnetism all of its own.

His material is mostly of the confessional, ‘my story so far’ kind: some quirky tales of growing up as the hapless choirboy son of a strict estate agent; some attempts to rationalise his OCD; a refreshing take on the trials of being unlucky in love – material that is well worked and sharply observed. And there is bite behind the shyness, too – you don’t have to be a feminist to applaud the anti-sexist sentiment that underpins a routine in which he imagines he’s the first man to buy his girlfriend this ‘crazy new invention’ called make-up.

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His dates may be out of his league but as a comedian, he’s up there with the big guns.